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202. China Rising: Peace, Power, and Order in East Asia
- Author:
- David C. Kang
- Publication Date:
- 12-2009
- Content Type:
- Book
- Institution:
- Columbia University Press
- Abstract:
- Throughout the past three decades East Asia has seen more peace and stability than at any time since the Opium Wars of 1839-1841. During this period China has rapidly emerged as a major regional power, averaging over nine percent economic growth per year since the introduction of its market reforms in 1978. Foreign businesses have flocked to invest in China, and Chinese exports have begun to flood the world. China is modernizing its military, has joined numerous regional and international institutions, and plays an increasingly visible role in international politics. In response to this growth, other states in East Asia have moved to strengthen their military, economic, and diplomatic relations with China. But why have these countries accommodated rather than balanced China's rise? David C. Kang believes certain preferences and beliefs are responsible for maintaining stability in East Asia. Kang's research shows how East Asian states have grown closer to China, with little evidence that the region is rupturing. Rising powers present opportunities as well as threats, and the economic benefits and military threat China poses for its regional neighbors are both potentially huge; however, East Asian states see substantially more advantage than danger in China's rise, making the region more stable, not less. Furthermore, although East Asian states do not unequivocally welcome China in all areas, they are willing to defer judgment regarding what China wants and what its role in East Asia will become. They believe that a strong China stabilizes East Asia, while a weak China tempts other states to try to control the region. Many scholars downplay the role of ideas and suggest that a rising China will be a destabilizing force in the region, but Kang's provocative argument reveals the flaws in contemporary views of China and the international relations of East Asia and offers a new understanding of the importance of sound U.S. policy in the region.
- Topic:
- Conflict Prevention, Arms Control and Proliferation, International Trade and Finance, Political Economy, and Power Politics
- Political Geography:
- China and East Asia
- Publication Identifier:
- 9780231141888
- Publication Identifier Type:
- ISBN
203. The Israeli Secret Services and the Struggle Against Terrorism
- Author:
- Ami Pedahsur
- Publication Date:
- 02-2009
- Content Type:
- Book
- Institution:
- Columbia University Press
- Abstract:
- While Mossad is known as one of the world's most successful terrorist-fighting organizations, the state of Israel has, more than once and on many levels, risked the lives of its agents and soldiers through unwise intelligence-based intervention. An expert on terror and political extremism, Ami Pedahzur argues that Israel's strict reliance on the elite units of its intelligence community is fundamentally flawed. A unique synthesis of memoir, academic research, and information gathered from print and online sources, Pedahzur's complex study explores this issue through Israel's past encounters with terrorists, specifically, hostage rescue missions, the first and second wars in Lebanon, the challenges of the West Bank and Gaza, Palestinian terrorist groups, and Hezbollah. He brings a rare transparency to Israel's counterterrorist activities, highlighting their successes and failures and the factors that have contributed to these results. From the foundations of this analysis, Pedahzur ultimately builds a strategy for future confrontation that has relevance not only for Israel but also for other countries that have adopted Israel's intelligence-based model.
- Topic:
- Intelligence, Military Affairs, and Counter-terrorism
- Political Geography:
- Middle East and Israel
- Publication Identifier:
- 9780231511612
- Publication Identifier Type:
- ISBN
204. Jewish Terrorism in Israel
- Author:
- Ami Pedahsur and Arie Perlinger
- Publication Date:
- 10-2009
- Content Type:
- Book
- Institution:
- Columbia University Press
- Abstract:
- Two world experts on the study of terror and security propose a theory of violence that contextualizes not only recent acts of terror but also instances of terrorism that stretch back centuries. Beginning with ancient Palestine and its encounters with Jewish terrorism, the authors analyze the social, political, and cultural factors sponsoring extreme violence, proving that religious terrorism is not the fault of one faith, but flourishes within any counterculture adhering to a totalistic ideology. Conducting interviews with former Jewish terrorists, political and spiritual leaders, and law-enforcement officials, and culling information from rare documents and surveys of terrorist networks, Pedahzur and Perliger construct an extensive portrait of terrorist aggression while also describing the conditions behind the modern rise of zealotry.
- Topic:
- Terrorism, Military Affairs, and Counter-terrorism
- Political Geography:
- Middle East and Israel
- Publication Identifier:
- 9780231520751
- Publication Identifier Type:
- ISBN
205. After the "Socialist Spring': Collectivisation and Economic Transformation in the GDR
- Author:
- George Last
- Publication Date:
- 03-2009
- Content Type:
- Book
- Institution:
- Berghahn Books
- Abstract:
- Historical analysis of the German Democratic Republic has tended to adopt a top-down model of the transmission of authority. However, developments were more complicated than the standard state/society dichotomy that has dominated the debate among GDR historians. Drawing on a broad range of archival material from state and SED party sources as well as Stasi files and individual farm records along with some oral history interviews, this book provides a thorough investigation of the transformation of the rural sector from a range of perspectives. Focusing on the region of Bezirk Erfurt, the author examines on the one hand how East Germans responded to the end of private farming by resisting, manipulating but also participating in the new system of rural organization. However, he also shows how the regime sought via its representatives to implement its aims with a combination of compromise and material incentive as well as administrative pressure and other more draconian measures. The reader thus gains valuable insight into the processes by which the SED regime attained stability in the 1970s and yet was increasingly vulnerable to growing popular dissatisfaction and economic stagnation and decline in the 1980s, leading to its eventual collapse.
- Topic:
- Cold War, Economics, Socialism/Marxism, Authoritarianism, and Rural
- Political Geography:
- United States, Europe, Soviet Union, West Germany, and East Germany
206. The Shape of the World to Come
- Author:
- Laurent Cohen-Tanugi
- Publication Date:
- 08-2008
- Content Type:
- Book
- Institution:
- Columbia University Press
- Abstract:
- Contrary to an optimistic vision of a world "flattened" by the virtues of globalization, the sustainability and positive outcomes of economic and political homogenization are far from guaranteed. For better and for worse, globalization has become the most powerful force shaping the world's geopolitical landscape, whether it has meant integration or fragmentation, peace or war. The future partly depends on how new economic giants such as China, India, and others make use of their power. It also depends on how well Western democracies can preserve their tenuous hold on leadership, cohesion, and the pursuit of the common good. Offering the most comprehensive analysis of world politics to date, Laurent Cohen-Tanugi takes on globalization's cheerleaders and detractors, who, in their narrow focus, have failed to recognize the full extent to which globalization has become a geopolitical phenomenon. Offering an interpretative framework for thought and action, Cohen-Tanugi suggests how we should approach our new "multipolar" world—a world that is anything but the balanced and harmonious system many welcomed as a desirable alternative to the "American Empire."
- Topic:
- Economics, Globalization, and International Political Economy
- Political Geography:
- United States and Global Focus
- Publication Identifier:
- 9780231517904
- Publication Identifier Type:
- ISBN
207. Refugee Rights: Ethics, Advocacy, and Africa
- Author:
- David Hollenbach (ed)
- Publication Date:
- 04-2008
- Content Type:
- Book
- Abstract:
- There are over thirty- three million refugees and internally displaced people in the world today. A disproportionate percentage of these displaced people are in Africa. Most have been driven from their homes by the armed strife of both interstate and intrastate confl icts. Such coerced migration violates people's freedom, and most have been displaced into settings where conditions fall far short of what is required to live with basic human dignity. Such displacement, therefore, violates people's most basic human rights in multiple ways.
- Topic:
- Human Rights and Refugee Issues
- Political Geography:
- Africa
208. New Rights Advocacy: Changing Strategies of Development and Human Rights NGOs
- Author:
- Paul J. Nelson and Ellen Dorsey
- Publication Date:
- 04-2008
- Content Type:
- Book
- Abstract:
- Like slavery and apartheid, poverty is not natural. It is man-made and it can be overcome and eradicated by the actions of human beings. And overcoming poverty is not a gesture of charity. It is an act of justice. It is the protection of a fundamental human right, the right to dignity and a decent life.
- Topic:
- Development, Human Rights, and Non-Governmental Organization
209. Brussels Versus the Beltway: Advocacy in the United States and the European Union
- Author:
- Christine Mahoney
- Publication Date:
- 03-2008
- Content Type:
- Book
- Abstract:
- Lobbying Is A Thriving industry on both sides of the Atlantic. K Street is notorious in Washington as the locus of high-powered lobbyists, with the Hill as the primary object of their attention. Round Point Schuman and Avenue de Cortenbergh form the geographical center in Brussels, with lobbyists descending on Berlaymont and Parliament. Both systems involve a wide range of advocates juggling for a role in the policymaking process, from beekeepers to chemical manufacturers, environmentalists to fishermen, recreational boaters to soda makers. If you can think of an interest, industry, institution, or idea, you can probably find a representative promoting its case in the two capitals.
- Topic:
- Foreign Policy, Diplomacy, and Bilateral Relations
- Political Geography:
- United States, Europe, Washington, and Brussels
210. Strategic Advantage: Challengers, Competitors, and Threats to America's Future
- Author:
- Bruce Berkowitz
- Publication Date:
- 09-2008
- Content Type:
- Book
- Abstract:
- This Book is intended to help readers better understand the national security issues facing the United States today and offer the general outline of a strategy for dealing with them. National security policy—both making it and debating it—is harder today because the issues that are involved are more numerous and varied. The problem of the day can change at a moment's notice. Yesterday, it might have been proliferation; today, terrorism; tomorrow, hostile regional powers. Threats are also more likely to be intertwined—proliferators use the same networks as narco-traffickers, narco-traffickers support terrorists, and terrorists align themselves with regional powers.
- Topic:
- International Relations, Security, and International Trade and Finance
- Political Geography:
- United States